During his latest appearance on The Joe Rogan Experience, Tesla Inc. (NASDAQ:TSLA) Elon Musk warned that the U.S.'s ballooning national debt and looming Social Security shortfall could push the country toward bankruptcy.
Musk Says US Debt Payments Now Exceed Military Spending
In the video posted Friday, Musk told Joe Rogan that his decision to step away from the Department of Government Efficiency initiative stemmed from realizing how deeply flawed the U.S. financial system has become.
"You can make it directionally better, but ultimately you can't fully fix the system," Musk said, adding that the national debt is growing faster than the country's ability to pay it down.
He noted that the government's interest payments on national debt now exceed the entire U.S. military budget, calling it one of his biggest "wake-up calls" for him.
According to Musk, even aggressive cuts to waste and fraud would only delay what he called "the day of reckoning."
"Unless you go full Genghis Khan, which you can't really do, I came to the conclusion that the only way to get us out of the debt crisis and to prevent America from going bankrupt is AI and robotics," Musk said, adding, “So basically we’re going bankrupt without AI and robotics.”
Musk ended his controversial four-month leadership of the DOGE in May.
See Also: Want To Help Pay Off $37 Trillion National Debt? Government Accepts Venmo, PayPal
Social Security Could Run Short By 2032 — And The Only Lifeline Is?
Musk pointed to the Social Security Administration's own projections, which estimate that the program will be unable to pay full benefits by 2032 due to an aging population and declining worker-to-recipient ratios.
He warned that Social Security will likely have to reduce benefit payments within the next seven years as the program runs short on funds.
When asked how to fix this issue, Musk said, "You’ve got to basically massively increase the economic output … and the only way to do that is AI and robotics."
He argued that technology-driven productivity could expand GDP fast enough to offset ballooning debt, while efficiency reforms alone could only buy time.
US Debt Tops $38 Trillion, Rising Faster Than Ever Outside The Pandemic
America's national debt soared to a record $38 trillion earlier this month. While the figure alone is concerning, the pace of the increase is even more striking.
The debt climbed from $36 trillion in November 2024 to $37 trillion by August 2025 and in just two more months, it has surged past $38 trillion.
This represents the fastest trillion-dollar increase outside the COVID-19 pandemic, putting the U.S. well ahead of the Congressional Budget Office's pre-2030 projections, which were made before the pandemic disrupted spending forecasts.
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